(Coronavirus) New England Road Trip – Summer 2020

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Dave

On the road to New England

It has been over thirty years since my first epic road trip to New England. That was in my mid-twenties during a particularly difficult period of my life. I clearly remember experiencing the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the first time and camping near Mount Washington. The soundtrack to the trip was REM’s Monster. I think I played it on repeat the the entire trip.  I can’t remember if it was cassette or CD…did CD’s exist 30 years ago?

Flash forward to the present. A hastily planned trip back to New England during much happier times.  This time, I had the the experience of living in Maine for over a decade behind me. This time, I had a purpose in mind–to visit friends and family along the way. Although I had a loose itinerary in mind, it was altered significantly when I learned my brother and sister-in-law was RV’ing in northern Vermont.  This resulted in a significant departure from my original plans but I needed this type of serendipitous change of plans. This time, my soundtrack was Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher.  Again, I must have played this over twenty times but Spotify makes this so much easier to manage.

The trip details: Louisville to Pittsburgh to visit family, Pittsburgh to Kennett Square, PA to visit cousins I have not seen in well over 10 years, Kennett Square to South Hero, Vermont to visit more family, Vermont to Portland, Maine (via the Kangamangus road in NH) to visit friends. The trip included a two day stay at Wolfe’s Neck Oceanfront Campground.

Highlights of the trip included:

  • All of the food prepared by friends and family
  • The 20 mile bike ride through Freeport and Brunswick, much of it on roads I road many times when I lived there
  • The epic storm at the campground after our bike ride and our near death experience almost getting struck by lightning
  • The epic golf team match in which Rick and I prevailed over Derek and Paul even though we were huge underdogs
  • Being around my cousin and his family after more than 10 years and catching up on a lot of time
  • Being in Freeport, in general, as I lived there for over three years.
  • The masks, of course.

This was the first time I have traveled to Maine where I didn’t go into Portland’s old port one time…strange.

Some of the better photos:

And a short video of our campground storm experience:

Posted in Maine, New York, Northeast, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, US | 2 Comments

Italy 2019 – Dante’s Inferno

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Dave


We are back from a 10 day trip to Italy and we were lucky to be there in the midst of a record-breaking European heat wave.    We were greeted with 105-degree temps that didn’t let up much the entire time we were there.  I am sure Dante Alighieri was rolling in his grave with laughter as we tried our best to acclimate to the hellish weather.

Despite this, the trip turned out great.  We managed to fit in the standard Italy first-timers itinerary (Rome, Florence, and Venice) and also managed a few side trips to places I haven’t visited before–notably Bologna and the Cinque Terre (with swimming in the Ligurian Sea an added bonus).  

Reagen M. promised to provide a much more detailed accounting of our trip which I hope to post soon but for now, I’ll leave you with some pics from our adventure:

Posted in Europe, Florence, Italy, Rome, Venice | 1 Comment

So this is The 1975 live…oh my…

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Dave

I see that my travel blog is transforming into some sort of quasi travel/music website but that’s OK for now.  I believe I would be extremely derelict in my blogging duties if I didn’t post about The 1975 concert in Cincinnati last night.  For those that don’t know them, they are a group out of Manchester, England and they are difficult to categorize as far as a genre.  I think it is safe to say that they play an edgy style of pop and their live shows are second to none.  I have been to many concerts before but I have never seen anything quite like this.  It was liked being trapped in a trippy music video for two hours…in a very good way.  This was undoubtedly the best concert I have seen and I encourage everyone to check them out…even if you have never heard of them.  Here are a couple of vids…hopefully, they remain up:

 

Posted in Cincinnati, Midwest, Ohio, US | Leave a comment

Toronto – The National

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Dave

The National in Toronto

Yes…another road trip to see The National.  This time, it was a bit of an adventure.  We originally had a group of six scheduled to go and by the day of the trip, only me and Eric made the trek to Toronto.  One person, who shall remain nameless, checked his passport the night before the trip and discovered it was expired and another, who shall also remain nameless, got sick about 20 minutes into the trip–we had to return home to address that situation.  Still, we made the best of it but we did miss our friends and family who should have been with us.

A bit of a problem selling some of our spare tix, but the evening turned out great as our seats were close to the stage and the concert was certainly worth the trip.  

Regrets that we did not get to see much of Toronto as we were exhausted from the drive and all the walking we did near the venue.  The city is incredibly huge and requires at least a few days to get to see even a decent portion of it.   One of my favorite towns, for sure.

All was well with the trip except for the miserable U.S. border agent who took great pleasure in berating us for bringing back one bottle of wine more than we were allowed.  I don’t think I can adequately describe the theatrics/borderline hysterics we experienced from her.  A really nice welcome back to the States–thank you–that was quite a performance.  It pains me knowing that you might be someone’s mother. 

Here are a few shots from the concert…enjoy:

Posted in Canada, Ontario, Toronto | Leave a comment

Italy 2018 (I’ve been neglecting this blog far too long)

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Dave

A dreary November day in Milan

I have been absurdly derelict in my duties maintaining this blog.  Since my last post, we have visited Spain and Maine (yes, soon you will see my ‘rain in Spain falls Mainely on the plains post).

A recent trip to Milan, Italy has taken me out of my doldrums and I’m ready to start posting again.

I went to Milan over Thanksgiving break to visit Tony, an old friend of mine, who is teaching at Bocconi University.  It’s been over 5 years since my last trip to Italy and I don’t often make it to northern Italy so this was a nice trip—despite the awful weather.

First the good news–it was the first time in the last three trips abroad that I didn’t get deathly ill (Spain and Armenia were not good to me).  And the bad news–this is the second trip in a row that I have taken a tumble (Spain down a set of spiral stairs leading to a bad ankle injury, Italy on a moving train with only minor consequences).  Not sure what either of those situations tells me–other than it sucks getting older, I suppose.

Overall, despite the weather, the trip was good with the highlights being attending my first Opera (Elektra)–at La Scala–arguably the best Opera house in the world (if I am going to my first Opera, I wanted to do it in style).   We were also able to visit Mantua to get a tour of Palazzo Te from Massimo, a colleague of Tony’s at Bocconi.  Pallazo Te had a great Gerhard Richter/Titian exhibition while we were there and we were fortunate to have Massimo’s guidance and expertise as we visited (I believe he was instrumental in setting up the exhibit).  The New York Times has a great review of the exhibition (click on link below):

Titian and Gerhard Richter: Keeping Faith With Painting, 5 Centuries Apart

Lastly, after countless trips to Italy, I was finally able to make it to Italy’s lake region and visited the town of Arona.  I look forward to going back in the summer when there is (hopefully) much better weather.

As usual, I have a few pics to show:

 

Posted in Europe, Italy, Milan | Leave a comment